


Scorch Marks Burn The Ocean

by MilkTeaMiku



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Lance (Voltron) Whump, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 20:46:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12350358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilkTeaMiku/pseuds/MilkTeaMiku
Summary: Keith made him feel vulnerable, like a grass sprout pushing up through the ashes left by a forest fire. The words unravelling in him threatened to spill from his lips, racing against the burn of tears in the corners of his eyes. He forced them all back.“Nothing’s wrong,” he lied. It almost tasted like the truth.-Lance is not coping. Keith notices.





	Scorch Marks Burn The Ocean

Something in Lance was unravelling. 

It started a while ago, so small and fleeting that he hadn’t noticed it. A thread came undone inside him, just the end, fraying into an annoying blotch that ached to be pulled at. For a while, it could be ignored. Anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence knew that if a loose thread was pulled, then it was inevitable that the rest would come undone, until the very foundations of a person were torn apart with nothing left to be sewn back together.

But Lance wasn’t a reasonable person, and he’d never been able to ignore an itch, not once he’d noticed it.

When he thought about it, he believed that the very first hint of disorder in him started the minute he found Blue. It was inexplicable, the feeling that the Lion had invoked in him. Deep down he’d always ached to be the _first_ of something. Someone’s first choice, the first in class, the first person someone thought of when asked to think of a best friend or a lover. He wasn’t any of that, and he wasn’t the first born child, or even the first born son. He wasn’t first at the Garrison or first outside of it, either. But he was the first to bond with a Lion.

It seemed that, for a little while, that was a feat that no one could take away from him. It was his to secretly hoard and marvel over. He’d gotten his Lion first, bonded with her _first,_ before the most talented pilot Keith or the most kind-hearted Hunk or the most intelligent Pidge or the most experienced Shiro had. Being in Blue had invoked the same feelings in Lance that only a few other things in the world ever could: being captured by the rain of a heavy summer storm searing the earth free of muggy heat, and the salty toss of ocean waves at night when the tide dragged insistently at his ankles and the deep, colourless water begged him for eternal company. 

Blue had been like that, but more, but better, but fiercer. She had made him feel special, had given him something he could call his own. He was the Blue Paladin. Until he wasn’t.

As it turned out, Blue was the easiest to pilot. Allura could have spun the tale in any way she wished, layering his uneasy mind with flowery reassurances and long, complicated spiels that she probably thought he couldn’t understand, but he knew. Blue was the most trusting Lion. If one had a brave heart and the right intentions, Blue would welcome them. She’d welcomed Allura like Lance had never existed.

All that crap about setting him free to fly on his own had hurt more than he’d let anyone know about.

In the struggle to find something to call his own, he’d been called by Red. The Lion clearly favoured Keith, responded to Keith the best and sometimes even in a sentient decision of her own, but she needed Lance to pilot her while Keith took over Black. He didn’t fit into Red, even if the Lion responded to him as her pilot. There was nothing about Lance that could invoke the strength Red needed. He wore his blue armour and his blue pyjamas and in a very hollow part of him he’d quickly buried, his heart still belonged in the Blue Lion.

The thread unravelled fast, once he’d started pulling at it.

Even if Blue had started it – the unexplainable, otherworldly, mystical ocean of her that drowned him and tossed him and suffocated him amongst the stars – she hadn’t ended it, not really. There was no end to a spool of thread rolled off its perch, no discernible start or finish. That was how it felt. First it was Blue, revealing to him a world, a universe, he was perhaps not ready to know about, but it was everything after that combined its strength to yank the threads straight out of him.

He didn’t… fit in. There was in intrinsic instinct in him that had always given him the ability to read social situations well. It was why he was friends with many, even if he was best friend to none. He could read social situations better than he could read equations or novels or essays. It was as though every person was a red thread connected on a conspiracy board, pinned down beside a photo of their face and all the things and people they liked. 

He could see them laid out before him: the brotherly bond between Keith and Shiro, the easy equality between great minds shared by Pidge and Hunk, the familial tenderness strengthened by loss and isolation that Allura and Coran shared. There were other connections, too, ones that snapped into place and strengthened the more time they spent in space. There was an understanding of leadership between Shiro and Allura, and Shiro and Coran. Hunk grew to know Coran better through cooking. Pidge bonded with the mice, and in turn, with Allura. Keith and Hunk settled into a silent agreement of partnership, as did Keith and Pidge, where it was clear they trusted each other as Paladins and pilots. As each connection was made, the board in Lance’s mind grew more crowded, until he felt compelled to draw away, fearful of becoming tangled and fearful of standing in someone else’s way.

It was easy, when it came down to it. He stopped flirting with Allura. He stopped bothering Pidge. He stopped accompanying Hunk to the kitchens. He stopped trying to follow in Shiro’s footsteps. He stopped bickering with Keith. In his mind, it was easy to sever ties, to pull away, to crawl back into himself. Even his bond with Blue weakened, almost to the point where he couldn’t feel her anymore. He deserved it. He was the seventh wheel, the replaceable one, the backup piece. Anyone could be taught to shoot, just like anyone could fly Blue. 

A part of him knew it was more than just his feelings of inadequacy regarding his fellow pilots. It was about him, about what he felt. What he was feeling for someone. Something shameful coiled around his heart, not made shameful because of gender, but because of the person specifically. Lance had always been careful not to give away part of himself that he would never get back. Growing up with older and younger siblings and a whole crowd full of cousins made him protective of his resources, even if that included his heart.

He didn’t know what made him fall for Keith.

But he had. Fallen, that is. Hard and fast like a spark of fiery red. An explosion of orange fireworks. The inevitable crackle and fizzle of a sparkler. Maybe it was because Keith was pretty or maybe it was because he’d wanted someone to want him and Keith was desperate for validation that Lance would have readily given, if he were asked. Maybe it was because he just liked Keith. Liked his snappy attitude and his hard-headed drive for what was right and the embarrassed little looks he made when he realised the people around him actually liked him for him.

Lance liked Keith for Keith.

But he buried that, too.

That thing inside him continued to unravel now that he’d pulled on it. He was uncomfortable in Red, and couldn’t look anyone in the eyes. It became worse and worse as stress clawed at his shoulders. Sometimes, when he was in the shower, he’d close his eyes and tilt his face back, willing his body to think of the droplets as rain. But the pressure was wrong, the scent was wrong, the rhythm was wrong. Everything was wrong.

In space, there was nowhere to escape.

A lot of conflicting feelings overwhelmed him as everything became loose and unstable. He felt burned by his jealousy of Blue. He felt seared by his obvious inadequacies. He felt branded by his uselessness. He felt charred by the mask he wore and the lies that left his lips easier than the truth. He felt blackened by his desperate need for the rain to drown him. He felt scorched by his desire for Keith.

His undoing, in the end, would always be the people that took parts of him when his eyes were closed.

He would have been fine if the others hadn’t noticed. But how could they not, when he couldn’t prompt Red to produce flames, when he couldn’t follow Keith’s orders, when he couldn’t bring himself to be glad that they had Shiro back? When he couldn’t eat, when he got bested by a training droid with a staff aimed to the face, when he couldn’t land a bullet on the target no matter how many he unleashed? This was all he had, the only valuable part of him – his aim. If he didn’t have that, then he had nothing. It would only be a matter of time before Shiro regained Black, and Red returned to Keith, leaving him Lion-less and unneeded.

That was what scared him the most.

That one day, no one would need him.

That nobody did in the first place, anyway.

He would have been fine if no one had noticed. It started simple, with tentative remarks about his wellbeing from Shiro and Allura. He could dazzle the Alteans with outrageous human flirting and finger guns, but Shiro wasn’t so easily fooled.

“It’s been a long few weeks, Lance,” Shiro had said, as a disapproving frown furrowed his brows. His words were as heavy as the condemning bang of a judge’s hammer. “If you need to rest, tell us. We need Voltron performing at one-hundred percent.”

“Right, right-” Lance had scrambled for words, trying to think of something that would appease Shiro, something that would sound honest coming from him. “I’m just tired. Yeah, exhausted. Long few weeks.”

It had worked, for a little while.

But then Pidge said something. Lance was hovering outside of the common room, aching to sit on the couches with the others, to be enveloped by their easy conversation. Something had stopped him. He didn’t know what, not even now.

“Has Lance seemed different lately?” Pidge had asked. They had sounded genuinely concerned, but genuine feelings turned Lance to stone. 

“Different how?” Allura asked. She was concerned too, always eager to learn human body language, to discern new things about them – about him – that he feverishly killed every morning when he looked into the mirror and willed the swelling around his red eyes to go down. “He has seemed a little… tired, of late. Perhaps we should suspend Voltron activity for a few days?”

Pidge only shrugged. Lance had edged around the corner just enough to see into the room without being seen. “Maybe he misses Blue,” Pidge said. “He’s been weird since Blue wouldn’t open up for him.”

“I thought that too,” Hunk agreed.

Lance shifted uneasily, but the movement had drawn Keith’s eyes, and for a few painful seconds Lance had thrown every curse word he knew in his head at Keith for being so perceptive. He’d ducked back around the corner, but he knew Keith had seen him, knew that Keith was aware that he’d been listening. He couldn’t hear any other words murmured over the panicked rushing of his blood through his veins, over the sudden throbbing in his head. 

He’d escaped down the corridor, painfully aware that Keith had stood to take his place at the corner, watching him retreat with a confused frown.

The problem was that he did miss Blue. He tried not to, tried to remember that Blue wasn’t his to own, and hadn’t ever been. He spent innumerable sleepless nights breaking her down in his mind, unscrewing her bolts and demolishing her into pieces of metal and strewn streaks of blue paint. Anything to make her less than what she was. She was a lion; a pitiful animal. She was sheets of metal; recyclable, easily made. She was an amalgamation of lines drawn on blueprints and something magical, like the blue in Allura’s eyes and the twin marks on Coran’s cheeks and the eerie glow of Balmera crystals. 

Blue wasn’t his.

He flew Red.

When he’d demolished Blue, he tried to rebuild her as Red. Smaller, faster, born from the insufferable heat of active volcanoes and the deepest aches that only the very dead of summer could inflict upon the Earth. She was bolts screwed back into sheets of metal painted in streaks of red. She was sleek, agile. She had handles that fit the shape of Keith’s hands. She had a fighting style that was uniquely Keith’s. She was quick-tempered and fiery, with a roar that sounded like the echoes of Keith’s voice saying his name in his head, over and over. 

And every time he built her in his mind, he grew to hate her more. He hated Red. He wore blue armour, had blue eyes, felt most at home and most connected to the world and to himself when he was running out of oxygen beneath the waves of the ocean. He hated Red. He had the Blue Paladin pyjamas and the slippers and he desperately wished he hadn’t given Allura the Blue Bayard, even though she needed it, even though the universe needed her to have it. He hated Red.

He hated Red. He hated Red. He hated Red.

He hated the colour red. It had become more than a colour, more than the petals of the roses his father gave to his mother every Valentine’s Day. It had become Keith, it had become shameful desire, it had become hot and blistering and soul-consuming. 

Red burned him when all he wanted was the water.

Hunk tried to help him. Once, there hadn’t been any self-depreciating thought or bout of bad grades that couldn’t be cured by Hunk’s homely cooking. He’d grown accustomed to Hunk’s special brand of caring, the type where he had space but he didn’t, where he had comfort if he needed it and if he didn’t. Pushing Hunk away with forced cheerfulness and teasing grins felt right until he realised he’d lied and that Hunk had believed him.

Soon enough, he was thinking of Voltron like a stage. He was alone, with all the lights on him, a cement façade stitched to his face while the rest of him was left to unravel. All he had to do was smile like an idiot, like the idiot everyone thought he was, and the crowd full of Paladins before him would laugh and clap and nothing could ever be wrong. Smile and nothing could ever be wrong.

The one person who never smiled was Keith.

It took a hit to Red before Keith finally snapped. Lance had been distracted, overwhelmed by the pressing red of the Lion’s interior, and a blast had blown up against Red’s side, sending them careening through space in a blaze of black smoke. He felt like whatever it was that was stuffed into rattles to make them noisy. He didn’t have much of a connection with Red, only the faintest of threads, but his inability to keep her safe stretched at them. Perhaps she was starting to doubt Keith’s confidence in him, just like Lance was. 

He hated Red. He hated the Lion and the colour alike, even more so when it dripped from a gash above his eyebrow and when it seeped through the white bandages Coran later taped into place. He hated it when he saw it splattered across his gloves. He hated it when spots of it rose with worry in Allura’s cheeks. He hated it when he saw it on Keith’s armour.

Keith confronted him about it.

“What has been up with you lately?” He demanded, arms crossed as he gave Lance his lone-wolf stare, the one that made shame sink like a stone in his stomach. “You’re not focusing, and you’re not eating, and you’re not- you’re not hanging out with anyone. It’s not like you.”

Lance pressed his lips into a thin line to stop the anger from seeping out. Who was Keith to say that he wasn’t acting like himself, as if everything that was burning him from the inside out wasn’t his own suffering? As if Keith knew him, really knew him?

“Well?” Keith’s eyes were expectant. “None of us can help you if you don’t tell us what the problem is. We’re meant to be a team.”

Lance didn’t respond well to anger, and he never had. Not his own or someone else’s. He could redirect it, could weather it. Every measure he took against it was a temporary matter, so with nausea coiling beneath his belly button, he put a temporary grin on his face, and said, “What, you worried for me, Keith? Don’t worry, I just didn’t get enough beauty sleep last night.”

Keith didn’t look impressed. In fact, there was disappointment hiding in the crude downturn of his thin lips.

“What?” Lance repeated. He felt like a dial on an old radio, like the one his grandpa used to fiddle with. When the dial was turned too far, the sound became screechy and unpleasant, high-strung and full of static. He was full of static. “Being this beautiful doesn’t come easy, you know.” He pushed off the table so fast that Keith had to take a step back to avoid being bumped by him. For some stupid reason, the way Keith moved away from him hurt. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to shower. My hair is almost as disgusting as yours and that’s saying something!”

Temporary smiles only lasted until no one was around to see them.

In the shower, he peeled off his amour and his underclothes and left them where he wouldn’t be able to see them from the shower stall. The bathroom was a strange collection of architecture favoured by the Alteans. Individual shower stalls with tiled floors and walls sat like little pods along the walls, lit with the same eerie glow that the Balmera produced, much like the rest of the castle. They were very private and built for comfort, which Lance appreciated. 

He turned the water on as hot as it was go to wash away the blood and sweat. His skin turned red within minutes, and steamed filled the room, making everything slippery and humid. When the heat became too much for him, he slammed on the cold taps, and cried when coolness washed across his skin. The sound echoed, so he padded out of his stall to the ones on either side and turned the taps on, feeling sickly comforted by the pitter-patter of drops against the tiled floors. He hunched, shivering, under the steam in his original stall and bit into the fleshy part of his thumb to keep his sobs from becoming too loud. Everything was unravelling and he loved Keith and he hate Red and he was a liar.

The shower water was no substitute for rain, but after a while, he became too cold to cry and too exhausted to bring himself to try. He turned off all the taps he’d turned on after rinsing his face in the cold water, hoping to bring down the swelling quick. He was an ugly crier.

No one was waiting for him when he exited the showers, dressed in pyjamas, hair still dripping wet because his head was throbbing and he liked the feeling of cool water sliding beneath his clothes. He’d been the only person injured on their recent mission, but it was just a bump to a head. No one saw the puncture wound inside him, the one that everything was unravelling out of.

The common room was empty when he passed back through it, and feeling like a guilty child trying to enjoy something that wasn’t his, he crept into it, and laid down on the couch. His body ached for sleep so he closed his eyes and obliged it, praying that no one would find him curled up there.

But Keith found him.

A delirious, traitorous part of Lance’s mind wanted to believe that the flush on Keith’s cheeks came from embarrassment, because Lance had woken to Keith’s gloveless fingers in his hair, smoothing it away from his forehead and the bandage patch cradling his wound. For a moment, he thought he’d been dreaming.

Reality was not so kind.

“You weren’t in your room,” Keith said. “I went to check.”

Lance frowned. It was well into night time now. Everyone should have been asleep. “Why?”

“I was worried.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not being yourself,” Keith said. He paused, then added, “because you got hurt.”

Lance wasn’t sure what he felt when those words left Keith’s mouth. “I’ve been hurt before,” he finally said. Keith hadn’t come then. “We all have.”

“This is different,” Keith insisted. He looked frustrated, and his cheeks were still flushed with a faint red. “Look, I’m not good with words–”

“It’s fine,” Lance said, when unease reared its ugly head. He didn’t know where this was going, and part of him didn’t want to know. It was the bigger part. “I’m fine. I just haven’t been sleeping, okay? I’m just tired.”

But Keith wasn’t so easily deceived. He took in what Lance had said, mulled it over, and then shook his head. “Lance, look,” he started. He paused to gather the right words. “I know I’m not a good leader like Shiro, or a good friend like Hunk and Pidge. But we’re a team, okay? I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“Like what?” The words were out before he could stop them.

“Like this,” Keith repeated, the words stressed. “You don’t lie to Hunk and you don’t mess up with Voltron and you certainly don’t stop making fun of me when the opportunity is there. Something’s not right and I can see it and I just… I want you to be okay. I just don’t know what’s wrong.”

If those words had come from anybody else, they would have been an accusation. Lance would have shied away from them. But Keith made him feel vulnerable, like a grass sprout pushing up through the ashes left by a forest fire. The words unravelling in him threatened to spill from his lips, racing against the burn of tears in the corners of his eyes. He forced them all back. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” he lied. It almost tasted like the truth. 

“Something’s wrong,” Keith said. He sounded uncharacteristically… soft. Like he was trying to ply the information from Lance, rather than force it. He rested his hand on Lance’s side without thinking about it. “You need to trust someone, Lance.”

“And you want me to trust you?”

“I do. I trust you.”

“Why?” Lance was surprised.

“Because you keep me stable,” Keith said. He spoke the words reluctantly, like they embarrassed him, or like he’d wanted to keep them a secret for a little while longer. “It’s like… when I get frantic, you tell me to slow down, and I do. I can hear you over everything in my head. I think that’s why Red chose you, because you help me. I needed you to support me so I could lead Voltron in Shiro’s stead.”

Lance blinked. The words took a moment to sink in. It was perhaps the most he’d ever heard Keith say in one go. And he’d never spoken in such a heartfelt voice. It made Lance feel exposed. “I hate Red,” he croaked.

Keith jerked as if he’d been stung, but his hand remained against Lance’s side. “Why?”

He struggled to form the words. He didn’t think Keith could understand the complicated feelings inside him, not if he couldn’t get them out straight. “She’s not mine,” he finally said. “She’s fire and it burns.”

Keith was silent for a long time. “Do you miss Blue?”

“Blue’s not mine either,” Lance said. Those words came quickly. They were the truth. 

“Lance, the Lion switching is only temporary,” Keith said, hesitant. “When Shiro can pilot Black, everything will go back to normal. Blue is your Lion. You’re the Blue Paladin.”

But Lance was already shaking his head. He wasn’t. He hadn’t been for a long time. He was a scared boy stuffed into armour. “I just want to go home,” he whispered. He could hear the tears in his own voice, even if his eyes were dry. “I want it to rain again.”

Keith tried to ply more answers from him, tried to get him to talk more, but Lance covered his eyes with an arm and said nothing else for the remainder of the night. Keith eventually convinced him to at least sleep in his room, where there was a bed and blankets. Lance left him sitting on the couch without as much as a single goodnight. He still wanted to crawl into Keith’s arms and beg for affection. He didn’t.

Things seem to settle for a few days. Lance dodged questions from his fellow Paladins, made excuses to avoid meals, and pretended to be asleep when someone came looking for him. It was plausible enough when he wore earmuffs and an eye mask. He didn’t stray near the hangar bays, too tangled up inside to see Blue or Red or any of the Lions without feeling like throwing up. 

But then Keith cornered him, looking pent up and nervous. “We’re going on a mission,” he stated.

Lance frowned. Keith had caught him lingering around the common room, going in when it was empty and leaving before anyone else arrived. “Where to?”

“There’s a planet not too far from here that needs our help,” Keith said. It was vague, but Lance didn’t say anything. “It’s just us going.”

Lance’s eyebrows went up.

“And we’re just taking Red,” Keith continued. “Suit up, I’ll meet you in the hangar.”

Lance reluctantly did so. He didn’t want to fly and Keith probably knew that, but if he argued he’d only make the situation worse for himself. He met Keith in the hangars and tried to ignore the apprehension that filled him as they boarded Red. He almost expected Keith to pilot, but he took the second seat that emerged from the floor behind the first, and waited for Lance to guide Red into space. The coordinates had already been pre-set, so all he had to do was get there. It sounded easy enough.

But it felt wrong. He was tense, his grip on the handles too tight. Red didn’t respond to him like Blue did. Red was faster, touchier, and leaned into the slightest touch. Lance couldn’t get his heart to sync with hers, couldn’t get his pulse to steady. He felt unhinged.

“Red is fire, like you said.” Keith suddenly stood, after they’d exited a wormhole that deposited them along the outer gravitational field of a grey, cloudy planet. “She burns quickly, and demands energy. I… don’t know how you connected with Blue, but I connected with Red here.” He crouched beside Lance, holding the chair to steady himself, and pressed his hand over Lance’s chest. “Not my heart, but something else. Something that’s like a pulse, that lives. Something warm.”

Lance’s heart was racing. He could almost feel the heat of Keith’s palm burning through all the layers between them. He didn’t take his eyes off of the planet they’d appeared beside.

“The only thing I can tell you is to trust in the instincts the Lions all share,” Keith said. “Even if they’re different, they still form Voltron. Blue trusted Allura to pilot her because you trust Allura to lead us. And Red trusts you because I do. That’s all she needs to know to open for you. That’s all you need to trust in.”

Lance let the words wash over him. His eyes flickered closed, just for a moment, and he almost felt like his connection with Red was glowing. It was a start. Baby steps. Tentative.

“So what’s this planet?” Lance asked. He hadn’t guided Red any further in yet. “Looks deserted.”

Keith stood. “Well, actually, we’re not here for a mission. There’s something else here.”

Lance frowned, confused. At Keith’s directions, he took Red in through the thick layer of clouds blanketing the planet until a forest terrain, spotted with rocky outcrops and deep green lakes, appeared. He found a fairly flat plateau to land on, and a tertiary scan of the landscape revealed that the lakes were mostly saltwater, and the forest was thriving off its salinity. It was almost as though the underwater plants on Earth had started growing above land here, nourished by springs located deep beneath the ground, where a series of interlocking vines and roots funnelled water like canals across the planet from lake to lake.

“Why are we here?” Lance asked, as he followed Keith outside. They stood in the shadow of Red’s jaw and looked up. The air felt stormy, like little pinpricks on every part of cold skin Lance had.

“Give it a second,” Keith said, a hint of nervous impatience in his voice. He checked the scanners on his suit once more, and looked up. 

Lance was going to suggest they just leave if this planet was nothing important when it happened. Like a tidal wave, the grey clouds he’d dove through before crackled with energy and suddenly broke open. In mere seconds the land was completely drenched by fresh-water rain.

That unravelling thing inside Lance finally ran out of thread.

Keith looked oddly proud of himself. He took his helmet off and tucked it under his arm, content that the air was safe enough to breathe. When he stuck his hand out from under the shadow of Red, his suit darkened with water. “There, perfect,” he said. A hint of a grin touched his angular face. “You said you missed the rain, right? I asked Coran to find me a planet where it rained. This was the closest one we could find. It starts to rain like clockwork for one hour a day here.”

A feeling was rising in Lance, one he couldn’t name. “You found me rain,” he said.

Hesitance flickered over Keith’s face. “Is that okay? I just thought… I just wanted to make you happy again.”

Lance pulled his helmet off and breathed in the biggest, shuddering breath he could. It wasn’t quite the same as it was on Earth, but the scent of rain was somewhat familiar, and it coated the inside of his lungs and his throat like a cooling balm. His breath caught. “It’s raining,” he said.

Keith only nodded. He was watching Lance, looking enraptured. Lance just didn’t understand him.

Carefully, like he was afraid the rain would bite, Lance put his hand out. He could feel the wetness of water seeping between the cracks in his armour, where his skin was protected by the black suit worn beneath the protective plates. Part of him wanted to scream. Part of him wanted to cry. 

Most of him wanted to be submerged.

He clutched his helmet like a lifeline as he stepped out into the rain. It soaked through his hair and dripped down the back of his neck and washed down his face. It was loud and noisy, pattering off of Red in metallic pinks and splattering against the ground with little thuds. It rolled off his armour but sunk beneath his veins, becoming one with whatever was underneath even that.

He thought that whatever that place was, whatever was beneath even his heart, was what Keith had been talking about before. Was what had bonded with Blue, and was trying to bond with Red. It felt good to be exposed by the rain.

So good he started to cry.

The tears started unexpectedly, hot and thick in the corners of his eyes where they spilled over and dripped off his chin. He lifted a hand to rub his eye and ducked his head, shoulders trembling. His knees were shaking. He hoped the sound of the rain drowned out his cries, but when Keith appeared by his side, put an arm around his waist, he knew they hadn’t.

He cried until there was nothing left in him, until all the thread had unravelled and all the fight was gone. When the anger disappeared, the rain became healing. It washed away everything that sat heavy on his shoulders and soothed the throbbing between his temples. His scrunched expression smoothed, his head tilted back, eyes closed and lips parted. 

For the first time in a long time, he was calm. 

He felt like himself again.

“Are you okay?” Keith asked.

“I’ve been better,” Lance rasped. His throat hurt from crying. It was a good hurt. “Thanks,” he whispered. “For this.”

Keith shook his head. Water dripped from the tips of his hair. “It was the least I could do.”

Lance eyed him, curious. “Why did you do so much for me?”

That flush came back to Keith’s cheeks. Tiny water droplets clung to his eyelashes when he glanced away. “Because I want to.”

“But why?” Lance pressed.

“I just wanted to make you happy,” Keith said. He forced the words out like a confession, quick and embarrassed. “I like seeing you happy. It’s weird when you don’t laugh.”

Lance blinked. He hadn’t expected that. There were parts to Keith he had yet to witness, that were still buried behind a mountain of poor social skills and rash thinking. But Keith was letting himself be soft, letting himself be vulnerable, so that Lance wasn’t the only one stripped raw by the rain. “You don’t have to do so much for me,” he said, quiet.

“I want to,” Keith said. “You’re my teammate. You’re flying my Lion. You’re who I… I just want to make you happy again, is that so hard to believe?”

What was hard to believe was how flustered Keith was becoming. Lance knew that realistically, Keith was trying to tell him something without saying the exact words. He knew that game well enough. Neither one of them were ready to dive headfirst into anything, but this felt like a start. It felt safe. It felt good.

With a big exhale, Lance rested his forehead against Keith’s. He felt Keith flinch, but the gesture was returned with a slight amount of pressure, just enough for Lance to know that Keith was reciprocating whatever Lance was offering. Their skin was wet and the damp strands of their hair tangled together, and there was something oddly intimate about breathing in the warm air that Keith breathed out, but he didn’t hate it.

For once, the warmth felt soothing. It kept away the chill the rain had brought. It made Lance feel less like a grass sprout and more like a pretty flower. 

“Would you do this again, if you feel bad?” Keith whispered. “With me?”

“I want to,” Lance said. He really did. He felt washed anew, clean in a way his scalding-freezing showers had never managed to make him feel. This picture wouldn’t feel complete if Keith wasn’t with him. “I want to do it again.”

Keith smiled. He looked handsome when he did that. 

One day, Lance wanted to kiss that smile. Not… not yet. But one day.

A beeping from their helmets reminded them that they couldn’t stay on that deserted planet forever. “Looks like we need to head back,” Keith sighed.

Lance nodded, and drew away. He felt colder without Keith close, but the cold wasn’t so bad. It made him feel awake. 

With a cheerful grin that felt utterly honest, he shoved his helmet back over his head, wet hair and all, and nudged Keith’s hip. “Race you back to Red!”

Keith gave him an indignant grunt and took off after him, trying to squeeze his helmet on as he did. “Lance, that’s cheating. You had a head start!”

**Author's Note:**

> Season four left me feeling angsty and a little Lance-deprived, so I wrote this to make myself feel better ❤
> 
> -
> 
> [my tumblr](http://milkteamiku.tumblr.com/)   
>  [my twitter](https://twitter.com/fairydens)   
> 


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